Arthur closed the setup wizard. He opened the Control Panel. Devices and Printers. There it was: Canon MX490 series (Copy 1). Grayed out. Ghosted.

And now the printer—his father’s printer, bought a decade ago at a big-box store, still stained with dried coffee from the old man’s last morning at home—refused to talk to the computer.

The little blue loading bar crawled. Then, a miracle: “Problem detected: Driver is outdated. Would you like to search for updated software?”

The search took forever. The fan inside the printer whirred to life, then stopped. The orange light blinked faster. Arthur held his breath.